The New York Review of Ideas » Q&A | June 2009
Deciphering Cryptozoology
Loren Coleman defines cryptozoology and says, once and for all, that it is science.
By Peter Koch
Do they believe in UFOs and ghosts, too?
I’m not interested in ghosts, not interested in UFOs. Ghosts don’t leave footprints. I’m interested in cryptids, because they leave footprints, they leave fecal matter, they leave hair, and sometimes, if you’re not being hoaxed or being confused by a run-of-the-mill, mundane animal, it might lead you to a new animal, a new species. I understand that a lot of people like to overlap the paranormal and the anomalistic, but for me cryptozoology—the study of hidden or unknown animals—is a scientific method by which you learn about new animals that have yet to be discovered.
Regarding eyewitness, do you think that there is an element of folklore involved? Or maybe social science or anthropology are better terms?
No doubt about it. I came from a background of anthropology first and zoology second and then psychiatric social work. This field is very much driven by what we call ethno-known animals, that is animals that are only known to cryptozoology through human experience, or eyewitness accounts. It’s not like an animal just plops out of the blue and into a science or zoology book. It definitely has to be seen, it has to be studied, it has to be photographed, it has to be captured. One way this information comes to us is through folk tales, news reports, songs, folklore, legends, witness interviews and all that kind of ethnographic material that really requires analysis and investigation from a zoological point of view to get some insight.
Linguists look for clues in language—the words locals use to describe the crytpid, translations of the name, as well as things like locality names. Is there a Monkey Hollow, a Monster Ridge, a Devil’s Cove? All of those can lead you to clues about experiences in the area that are related to cryptozoology.
One of the main tenets of cryptozoology is to interview the local people—the Victorians called them “natives”—you interviewed the local residents and tried to figure out whether the animals they were talking about were part of their spiritual world, part of their religious world, or part of the natural world. You look for the tangibles of the intangibles.
Critics have said that cryptozoology doesn’t have the skepticism that is inherent in science. They say that you believe a creature exists until it is proven otherwise.
As soon as you set up a question with absolutes you’re going to get into trouble. There are many parts of science where there is only theoretical proof, only theorems and ideas and peoples’ thoughts. Take life or water on Mars, for example. There are theories that it may or may not exist there. But just because they think it’s not there, people aren’t going to stop looking for it.
The same goes for cryptozoology. I can say that I don’t think there are any large animals in a given lake, even if some people say they’ve seen them. But I’m going to be open-minded enough to go ahead and gather reports and look for it. That doesn’t mean I absolutely think we’re going to find something, because maybe I think the lake is too shallow and doesn’t have the life necessary to support a large animal. But I don’t know all of the possibilities. I don’t think that is much different from science.
In fact, I think cryptozoology is traditional science. If you take away the word and look at the way animals were discovered before the word was invented, they went out and they talked to the native peoples: “Have you seen anything around here that you don’t know, that you haven’t eaten but you have seen?” That’s exactly how okapi was discovered, and the mountain gorilla, a lot of other animals that were found out by regular explorers and zoologists in traditional science. Cryptozoology is a method to explore and a way to find out about new animals. We are not creating left wing, new science. It’s seen as weird, but cryptozoology is just part of the scientific method of getting more information.
What separates cryptozoology from zoology?
I think it’s just a word, but it’s often one that is used to describe so-called “amateur” scientists. You are labeled a cryptozoologist if you don’t have a PhD, or if you haven’t published enough papers or gotten institutional funding. But I’ve seen zoologists do cryptozoological work, and amateurs do zoology work. They are finding new animals and they are using cryptozoological methods. It gets to be an elitist attitude and some chairs of some departments of zoology are very skittish of any cryptozoological method being labeled with that name cryptozoology. In their sixty, seventy or eighty years, cryptozoology has been tied to Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster—animals that they consider to be mere myth. Whereas a lot of the young cryptozoologists that I know who are wildlife biologists or in PhD programs grew up with, and accept the possibility of, Bigfoot. They understand cryptozoology as just a way to look for animals.
In your 50-year career have you ever seen an animal that you couldn’t explain?
Well, I don’t really like to talk about that, because it’s not important to me. I see myself as an investigative journalist and scientist who’s involved in studying these creatures. A lot of people get into the field because they’ve had a remarkable Bigfoot encounter or cryptozoological encounter. I didn’t come into it that way. I haven’t seen the Loch Ness Monster, the Lake Champlain Monster or Bigfoot, but I’ve had enough to keep me going.
You’ve written nine books about cryptozoology. Has publishing been the most financially lucrative part of your career?
I’m trying to keep the tea from coming through my nose from laughter [laughs]. Cryptozoology A to Z is by far the most successful book that I’ve ever written, and I got a little advance in 1999, and only started receiving royalties last year. In the space of a year I might get under $1,000 in royalties. The advances keep going down, too, because the publishing business is on the rocks, like everything else. So for the past couple of years I’ve sort of zeroed out in terms of income and expenses, but I wouldn’t give it up for the world. I’m finally doing what I want. I’m telling people about cryptozoology, writing about it.
The world has thousands of zoologists, but not so many cryptozoologists.
Yeah, myself and a dozen other people in the world get to call themselves professional cryptozoologists. When I went up against the IRS while they were auditing my 2005 taxes, half of my six-month battle was convincing them that I was actually a professional cryptozoologist. My accountant and defenders and I were taking in tapes of my television appearances and copies of my books as evidence to prove that cryptozoology was actually a field.
Did the IRS accept it in the end?
They accepted it, and they accepted my profession and my income that way. What they disallowed and still were a little “nudgy” about is they see my museum as a hobby, because it’s physically a part of my home.
Well, you know what they say: if cryptozoology is good enough for the IRS… ♦